


The Time Traveller

by kellsbells



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 11:54:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3446216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kellsbells/pseuds/kellsbells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is my first ever piece of fanfiction. It's Warehouse 13, so expect artefacts, Claudia snark, and HG and Myka awesomeness. Hopefully. Takes place after season 5, but I have only watched it once so I apologise for any factual mistakes. HG and Myka face each other after Nate, Pyka and Giselle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, it turns out I am a little bit late to this party, having only just discovered fanfiction and the Bering and Wells fandom in general. This is my version of what happened after season 5. I'm sure it's all been done before, and better, but it stuck in my head and wouldn't let go. As this is my first ever piece, I'd appreciate any feedback you wonderful people might have. (Also, I completely suck at posting things online, and have just realised that I posted the whole work as the first chapter. Anyway it's corrected now, sorry for any confusion.)

**The Time Traveller**

 

_“The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of those men who are too clever to be believed: you never felt that you saw all round him; you always suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush, behind his lucid frankness.”_

 

 

Steve Jinks had been a Warehouse agent for a while, and an ATF agent before that. He had seen many things in his life that were upsetting, unpleasant and even a few things that were devastating. He’d even had some very bad sexual experiences with women, and as a gay man that was truly disturbing. But nothing had ever prepared him for the sight of Pete Lattimer enthusiastically kissing Myka Bering. She kissed him back, and smiled and played along, but he could feel the lies she was telling in her every movement, every touch. It was a loud jangling inside his head, a gong discordantly clanging and making it impossible to concentrate. Steve couldn’t stand it. He could swear he had retinal burns from the sight of their incestuous kisses and he was starting to worry about his hearing too, with all the phantom jangling inside his brain. Pete’s happiness and Myka’s pain were horrifying to behold. That was when his mind started whirring.  He’d been working with Claudia Donovan long enough to be capable of being pretty devious. The first problem to take care of was Pete.

 

Myka had been busy on a Warehouse case for a few days in Prague. She had dropped off the artefact that she and Pete had bagged at the Warehouse and was making her way back to the B&B to get some sleep. She stopped the car outside in her usual spot and switched off the engine. She wasn’t ready to face Pete again, to see the joy in his face with every touch and kiss they shared. Her guilt was choking her. She had genuinely thought that she loved him, that the Warehouse was giving her a sign that he was her one. But when it came down to it, she realised that each kiss they shared felt like incest, like kissing her brother but with tongue. She’d managed to put off going any further than kisses for now. It all felt so wrong, but Pete loved her so much that she couldn’t see a way out. Her heart ached fiercely from both the pain of what she had done to Pete and the feelings she was working so hard to conceal and bury. She sighed and put her head in her hands, elbows on the wheel of the car. Her curly hair tumbled forward in a cascade, and her shoulders shook as she gave in to tears. She saw brown eyes, almost black, every time she closed her eyes. She didn’t hear the car door opening almost silently behind her, nor did she sense anything until the needle stung the side of her neck. Then she felt nothing at all.

 

Helena Wells was in New York, making her way to her home through the quiet streets at midnight. Her boots made little sound on the wet pavement. After her ill-conceived attempt at suburban happiness with Nate and his wonderful daughter Adelaide, she had moved to the Big Apple to try to start again. She was running away and she knew it. She got a job with the coroner’s office where she could use some of her skill, and took up with a beautiful French ballet dancer called Giselle. She didn’t need Freud or anyone else of his ilk to tell her why she had begun a relationship with a tall brunette with flashing green eyes and a mass of curly hair. Or why the relationship failed so spectacularly thereafter. Europeans, with their great passions and jealousies! Giselle had been using Helena’s laptop one day, saw some of her email exchanges with Myka, and asked Helena the questions she’d been dreading. Who was Myka? What did she mean to Helena? Helena tried to brush off the questions – after all, her email exchanges with Myka were painfully polite, painfully...empty. But she couldn’t meet Giselle’s eyes, fearing the woman would see the pain in her own. After that the outcome was inevitable. A lot of dramatic shouting in French, some (admittedly wonderful) angry sex, followed by the usual dramatics that accompany the end of a relationship with a dancer. She smiled a little at the thought, and then her brow furrowed as her traitorous mind showed her the green eyes she both craved and avoided so assiduously. She stopped in her tracks, long fingers going to her temples as she tried to banish the image of Myka’s clear green eyes brimming with tears. “ _Eyes that last I saw in tears_...” she quoted to herself, softly. She didn’t hear the quiet footsteps behind her. The sting of the needle was a shock. She tried to spin and face her attacker but darkness claimed her before she had taken a step.

 

Pete looked from Steve to Claudia, his jaw working as he tried to take in what they were saying.

 

“ She doesn’t...she doesn’t love me?” He looked at Steve, then Claudia, his eyes pleading with them both as they tried to comfort him.

 

“Of course she does, Pete. She loves you so much!” Claudia clasped his hands as she knelt down beside him. “She just doesn’t love you in that romantic way, honey.”

 

Steve put his hand on top of Claudia’s. “She’s been trying to make it right, Pete, but I can see her struggling to tell you. She loves you like a brother. Sometimes, when you want something to be true that badly, you try and make it happen. It looked like the perfect match on the surface, and God knows you love her. She tried, man, but she doesn’t feel the same way. Deep down, you know this.” Steve leaned forward and knelt beside Claudia. “Every word she’s said to you since that day at the Warehouse has been the loudest bell ringing in my head. You must have had vibes telling you it wasn’t right. “ Pete looked at Steve with pain in his eyes, and then dropped his gaze.

 

“I felt it. I just hoped she would...that she could grow to love me. But I felt how much it was hurting her. I think she loves someone else. I just wish I could work out who.” His brows came together in puzzlement. “Man, I’m so ashamed of myself...” he trailed off.

 

Claudia and Steve looked at each other, eyebrows raised, and Claudia said, “Really, dude, you have no idea?!” Steve looked at Claudia and leaned over and whispered in her ear, “He really doesn’t know. He’s telling the truth.” Claudia stifled a giggle.

 

“What?” Pete said, looking up at them with eyes brimming with tears. “What am I missing here guys?”

 

Claudia cleared her throat and looked at Pete sideways, trying to reconcile the idea that he could be that oblivious to the truth. “Uh, Pete honey, I’m really sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Myka has been in love with one HG Wells since the moment they met.” Pete’s eyes widened, and his brows furrowed comically as he looked left, then right, muttering to himself the whole time. “But they...but she...Mykes and HG? Seriously? Hang on, that is why they always spent so much time...but she’s a girl!” His eyes widened comically, his mouth in a wide “O” of surprise. “Steve, did you know about this?!”

 

Steve stood up, shuffled his feet, and put his hands in his pockets. He couldn’t meet Pete’s eyes.

 

“I’m sorry Pete. I kind of always thought you knew. The way they were with each other...the “get a roominess of them”...” Claudia high-fived Steve with glee at his Buffy reference. “Double points for the lady-loving reference, Jinkster!” Steve glared at her, whispering urgently, “not the time, Claudia!” She tried to plaster a guilty look onto her face, but the giggles lurked underneath and Steve took a deep breath so that he wouldn’t laugh at this truly inappropriate time. Looking at Pete’s face, however, did not help.

 

Pete looked from one to the other, his expression the very definition of “flabbergasted”. Then his expression changed to the dictionary definition of “horny frat boy” as he contemplated the implications of what Steve and Claudia were saying.

 

“So you guys let me believe...let me think that Myka loved me, and not only that but you...” He stopped, looking so completely enraged for one moment that Claudia and Steve’s hearts stopped, stricken with guilt.

 

“I could’ve been having the BEST dreams this whole time!” he shouted at the two of them, getting to his feet and gesticulating wildly. “I know HG is scary and, like, reformed evil and all that, but she’s so HOT and you guys didn’t tell me that she and Myka...that Mykes and her were into each other?!

What the hell is wrong with you people! I could have had so much happy Pete time and you two robbed me of that! I will never get that back!”

 

Steve and Claudia looked at each other, then at Pete, not sure whether to feel guilty, sad for Pete, or _sad_ for Pete and his mention of happy time.

 

Claudia recovered first and said, “Eugh, Pete, you are such a douche. One minute you’re mourning your lost love and the next minute you’re being the grossest. I felt guilty there for a minute...”

 

Pete rounded on her, waving his arms around, red-faced. “You should feel guilty Claud! You know how I feel about the lady-lovin! It’s one of my favourite things! I could’ve been so happy and you took that away!” He glared from one to the other. “I’m going to get something to eat. You guys suck!”

 

Claudia and Steve stood in stunned disbelief, watching the retreating back of the agent. When he was out of earshot, the two of them looked at each other and tried to stay composed, but Jinks’ mouth quirked and Claudia couldn’t hold it in anymore. They exploded into fits of laughter, the kind of giggles that people normally grow out of before they reach puberty, and every time they caught each other’s eyes, they just laughed harder.

 

“Dude, he was madder about missing out on the dirty thoughts than he was about Myka not loving him...and to think we were so worried about breaking his heart!” Claudia gasped and tears ran down her cheeks, streaking her mascara across her face and making Jinks laugh even harder.

 

Steve tried to talk, tried to get his words out, but all he could think was “Pete’s happy time...” and he had to sit on the floor to try and hold his insides together. His stomach muscles hurt so much that he thought he might not ever need to do another sit up. Claudia suddenly stopped laughing and ran to the nearest bathroom, wailing “I’m gonna pee myself”.  Jinks lay on the floor, giggles slowly subsiding as his partner in crime retreated to save her dignity. And her pants. His mouth curled in a soft, but slightly smug smile as he let the peace and approval of the Warehouse wash over him. Helena and Myka were in for a surprise.

 


	2. Chapter 2

_“So utterly at variance is Destiny with all the little plans of men.”_

 

Dreams were funny things. You could know you were in one, you could be fully aware but yet fully enmeshed in it nonetheless. Helena was old enough to know she was dreaming – her time in the bronze sector had been a century-long nightmare – but she was powerless to resist. She was holding a trident in one hand, and a cold, heavy gun in the other. Clear green eyes filled her vision, filled her heart, but rage and grief and despair filled her soul. Some part of her knew that this had already happened and that she had given up her murderous plans in the face of Myka’s wondrous trust, Myka’s entirely unlikely regard for her. But in her nightmares she instead feels the evil within her well up, stronger than her love, stronger than any modicum of goodness she has ever had in her, and she pulls the trigger, hears the thud as the body hits the ground, watches the light go out in the most beautiful eyes she has ever had the good fortune to behold. She hears Artie’s coarse scream of grief as she jams the trident home for the last time. She sobs in her unconscious state, tears running from beneath closed lids. “This must be what hell feels like,” she breathes, as the world fades to blessed oblivion.

 

Myka Bering had always been an analytical soul. Her emotions didn’t enter into most of her decisions, not until the Warehouse. Or, more accurately, not until Helena Wells had burst into her life and turned her perfectly ordered world on its head. Her world before HG Wells entered it – the real one, not the moustached face of HG Wells that was presented to the world in the 1890s – was a cold and empty one in so many ways. Her work was satisfying and fulfilling, and she cared a great deal about her colleagues, but her work was the only thing she had going for her and she knew it. Her personal life was a veritable desert. Since Sam died she hadn’t let herself feel much for any other person, not much past simple affection for her teammates – but something about Helena unlocked a well (she chuckled at the unconscious pun) of previously unfelt emotions. Not only for Helena. Her feelings for Pete, for Claudia, for every one of her friends and family, became stronger and deeper than ever before.  A light went on in her that even Helena’s betrayal at Yellowstone Park couldn’t extinguish. The betrayal devastated her, broke her in so many ways, but it couldn’t take away what Helena had awakened in her. She didn’t really have a word for it, but it was something like passion. Something she might have snorted at derisively before, but that was now irrevocably part of her soul. She, too, was in a dream, and she, too, was fully aware of that, but she couldn’t lessen the pain it was causing. She found herself standing in an innocent looking suburban kitchen that somehow felt to her like the death of hope. She watched Helena’s face flush as she said the words she wished she could take back, and also the words she wished had changed Helena’s mind. “You are denying who you are to chase a ghost. This life, it’s not who you are.” Helena’s face fell, her eyes blazing with rage. Myka knew that she in a dream, but this moment...this moment was the death of all she had dreamed since her heart awoke that day in London. They had disagreed before, but never had she angered Helena like this. She remembered the moments after, when they said goodbye to one another, and the feeling of Helena holding her for what she knew was going to be the last time. Something inside her chest erupted in red-hot pain and she fell back against the hated suburban cupboards of Helena’s new life, broken sobs escaping her as if torn from her body. The world swirled and faded to blackness.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Claudia and Steve sat at the table in the B&B, talking softly but then stopping suddenly as Pete came in.

 

“Hey guys,” he said cheerily, as he searched the cupboards for something to eat. They exchanged looks and Jinks stood up, approaching Pete slowly.

 

“Hey man, are you doing ok?”

 

Pete looked round in surprise. “Yeah Jinks, I’m good!” Steve waited for the discordant clang that didn’t come. “Wow, you really are ok, aren’t you?” Claudia and Steve exchanged glances again.

 

“Uh, Pete, how can you be so...’Pete’ about all this?” Claudia asked softly. Pete sat down at the table, stuffing Cheetos into the gaping maw of his mouth.

 

“I’m ok because I realised that I love Myka. Myka is not happy with me, so if I really love her, I let her go so she can be happy.“ His brow furrowed a little as he said, “I just wish I could find her and tell her that we’re ok and she doesn’t have to pretend anymore. She’s not answering her Farnsworth though. Do you guys think I should be worried?”

 

Claudia hurriedly said, “She’s just taking a break Pete, she’s fine. You can talk to her when she comes back.” Steve said “She’s ok, she wanted to talk to you before she left but we told her to take some time to herself and work stuff out and that we would talk to you. I hope you don’t mind. She feels so awful, Pete, I didn’t think it was a good idea for her to talk to you about this while she’s in so much pain already.”

 

Pete looked at Steve and said, “It’s ok man, she doesn’t deserve any of this. If I’d been more honest with myself we never would have got into this situation. She was trying to make me happy. Can’t blame the girl for that. Plus, the idea of her and HG together?! Wow, does that make Pete happy!”  He grinned obnoxiously, lacing his fingers behind his head and enjoying what Steve imagined were some pretty obscene, and very visual, thoughts.  Steve shook his head in playful disgust at Pete’s logic. Pete wandered off with multiple food items stuffed in his grinning mouth, his happy movie playing on in his head.

 

Claudia and Steve sat back down at the table. “So how exactly did the ‘snag’ go in New York?” Steve murmured in a low voice.

 

“Stealth-o-rama baby!” Claudia almost squealed. “I never thought I could sneak up on someone like her, of all people. All round scary evil genius and martial arts wizard, and Claudia Donovan takes her _down_!” She made what Steve supposed were intended to look like martial arts moves, and danced around the room like a multi-coloured whirlwind. Claudia had established a real connection to the Warehouse, and was maturing into a wonderfully strong and competent woman. But there are still times when Jinks still felt like he was talking to a drunk toddler. He felt a strong surge of warmth for her as she capered round the room like a lunatic.

 

“Yes, stealth is clearly your strongpoint,” he whispered sarcastically. “ We were supposed to be staying quiet, to keep Pete and Artie from getting suspicious, remember?”

 

She stopped suddenly, chastened, and sits down at the table again. “Sorry Jinksy, guess I got a little lost in my Donovan congratulation dance there...anyway have you checked the room? Are they awake yet?”

 

“Not yet,” Steve said. “The drug will wear off soon enough but it’s hard to say exactly how the artefacts will work together. The Ojibwe dreamcatcher might keep them asleep for a while to get them ready to face their real feelings. Is the Warehouse sure that using the pulley block from the Marie Celeste is the right thing to do? I’m kind of worried about them ending up getting strangled.”

 

She nodded. “Yeah, I had a really strong feeling about that one. Besides, it has a nice feeling of...coming full circle to it, you know?” She flashed a smile at him. “And are you sure that the...naked thing was really necessary? Psychology isn’t really my strongpoint but I feel like that’s kind of belabouring the point a little.”

 

Steve smiled. “I know it seems a little much but believe me, when you can’t hide your body, you can’t really hide your soul either. The ropes should stop them from getting away from each other and the dreamcatcher will take away the worst parts of their fears for long enough that they can see themselves, and each other, clearly.” He couldn’t believe that the Warehouse had let him and Claudia – no, _encouraged_ them to engineer this situation and make Myka and HG face the truth.

 

“Time to check out the dynamic duo,” Claudia said, jumping to her feet. They went to Claudia’s room and settled the bronzed handset of the Manzetti phone between them, heads together like teenagers sharing a song through one set of headphones. They smiled as they heard HG’s soft voice...

 


	4. Chapter 4

“Myka.” She heard the soft voice that haunted her dreams, and assumed she was still asleep. “Helena,” she sighed, wishing that she was really hearing that voice instead of just dreaming about it. Her raven hair, her molten eyes, her infuriating smirk – she missed them all. She couldn’t lie to herself about it. She feared the fierceness of the love in her battered heart and she pushed the feelings down, hard, and concentrated on waking up. Her eyelids flickered and she groaned softly as the light assaulted her eyes.

 

Helena awoke in an unfamiliar place, and realised quickly that she was bound. This was not necessarily an unusual occurrence, she admitted to herself (somewhere Pete Lattimer’s head was exploding), but she had no recollection of where she had gone to sleep or how she had come to be here. She opened her eyes slowly, allowing them to adjust slowly to the dazzling light. Her pupils expanded and suddenly focused on the curling dark hair of the woman lying opposite her, the woman with whom she was totally, incontrovertibly in love. “Myka.”

 

Myka stirred and murmured Helena’s name sleepily in response. Helena’s heart faltered in its rhythm at the blessed sound. Then Myka’s face creased in pain, and just as suddenly smoothed, serene and impassive, as she began to wake up. She groaned softly at the insult of the bright light against her tired pupils. Her clear green eyes regarded Helena, her gaze stealing the breath from Helena’s lungs as it always did.  She was over one hundred and forty years old, and felt she had lived a dozen lifetimes by now, but Myka’s eyes took away her weariness at the accumulated grime of her long life, cleared the stains away and gave her fresh wonder at the world that allowed her to look into those eyes once again. Her own dark eyes filled with tears of combined joy and sadness – the joy of being in Myka’s presence again, and the deep and abiding sadness of the knowledge that she could never have her heart’s desire. She remembered to breathe again as Myka’s eyes clouded and she looked away from Helena’s face, biting her lip.

 

“Where are we?” asked the curly haired agent, turning her head to try and look at the room around them. They were on a large and comfortable bed, but tightly bound, both to it and to each other. Her cheeks suddenly flamed and she tried to bring her bound hands up to cover herself. “I’m naked!” she squeaked. “And so am I,” breathed HG softly, trying to reassure her. Myka began wriggling in her bonds, turning her head so she couldn’t see anything, trying to hide her own nakedness. If she was honest with herself, she had desperately dreamed of a similar situation so many times in her most private moments. But she couldn’t be naked in front of Helena right now. She felt naked enough just looking the woman in the eye on a normal day. And now, when she was in this much pain, she couldn’t...just couldn’t be near her, never mind like this. She realised quickly that her struggles were tightening her bonds and that she was beginning to feel the warmth of HG’s body against her side.

 

“Myka.” Helena’s voice was low and thick, and Myka couldn’t look at her. She knew that if she looked into Helena’s eyes she would come entirely undone. Her breathing quickened and she struggled again, harder and harder, stifling a sob of fear and want under her breath. The ropes tightened more and more and Helena shouted “Myka, stop, you’ll strangle us if you continue! Please!” The ropes made a slithering sound as they tightened around her and pulled her and Helena closer, pressing their bodies against one another and bringing them face to face. Myka tried to turn her head but found she was held in place by the ropes. She muttered a curse against the ropes and screamed “No! This is not fair!” Her shoulders shook as she fought her own feelings and the close proximity of the person she wanted most in the world. The woman whose breath she could feel against her mouth. The woman who was whispering, “It’s alright Myka, please darling, don’t cry.”

 

Helena saw Myka’s eyes widen as she realised that they were naked, saw the embarrassment followed by horror, as she began to buck and strain against her bonds. Helena could not stop herself from looking at the agent, but fixed her gaze desperately on Myka’s arms, so as to avoid looking at anything Myka did not want to reveal. She could not help but marvel at the nearness of this woman, at the agent’s strong muscles, the corded tendons and veins as she struggled against her confinement. It was her figure, so strong and so entirely different from the soft and curvaceous women of Helena’s time, which had first caught Helena’s interest in London when she had otherwise been hell-bent on destruction. Her strong muscular arms as she pointed a gun directly at Helena, which led Helena’s eyes to travel upwards to follow the line of her neck, and finally to meet her eyes. The eyes that Helena now dreamed of all the bloody time. She sighed, but suddenly realised that their bonds were growing tighter, and her breath caught in sudden recognition of the ropes that had confined her and Myka once before. She shouted a warning to Myka to stop her struggles, and suddenly found that her hands were no longer bound. She moved a shaking hand to gently stroke Myka’s shoulder as the other woman sobbed, collapsing in upon herself as she gave up her struggles.  “Myka, my dearest Myka, please don’t cry. We are Bering and Wells, we can get out of this. We’ve been in worse scrapes, have we not?” She moved her hand hesitantly to Myka’s cheek. Their faces were already almost touching because of the pressure of the ropes that bound them.

 

Myka kept her eyes tightly closed, shaking her head almost imperceptibly at Helena’s soft words. She could not speak, could not give voice to what she was feeling. The walls that held in her carefully buried feelings were being assailed and she would not... _could_ not let them be breached. Her eyes opened slightly, and her gaze caught on the freckles that dusted Helena’s chest. Her mind wandered to a book she had read once. “ _I had not suspected the existence of the freckles. I found them wonderfully and inexplicably moving.”_ Herheart raced and she squeezed her eyes shut again, recognizing how childish the gesture was, but she could not meet Helena’s eyes, couldn’t look at the perfection of her skin. She knew that if she did, she would kiss the other woman, and that would be a betrayal of everything she had ever shared with Pete, the man who was in love with her. She couldn’t do that to him, and if she did it would be a betrayal of everything that she was at her core.

 

The women were both stunned by the sound of a familiar voice.

 

“HG. Myka. This is Steve. Claudia is here too.”

 

Myka shouted in the general direction of the voice, “Thank God, we need help! Guys, where are we?”

 

Steve’s calm voice stated simply, ”You’re in the Regent’s prison, were Helena was held before. The one with no doors.”

 

Helena’s eyes widened in alarm. “Why, Steve? How did this happen?”

 

Steve cleared his throat, and Claudia took over the explanation.

 

“Guys, you know that I have a connection to the Warehouse. It’s been getting stronger and over the past few weeks it’s been... talking to me, I guess is the best way to explain it. Talking to me about you both. The Warehouse has decided that it’s time for you both to face the truth.”

 

“What the hell are you talking about, Claud?” shouted Myka, angrily, eyes still screwed shut like a five-year old playing hide-and-seek. “What truth?”

 

Claudia chuckled, but there was little humour in the sound. “Don’t make me say it. You can lie to each other, Mykes, and you can lie to me, but you can’t lie to yourselves. And you can’t lie to the Warehouse. It always knows. It’s kind of terrifying actually. But that’s beside the point. Everything that has happened to you since you both passed out...it was all the Warehouse’s idea. Jinksy and I had to work out some of the details, but I think I can safely say that you two are stuck there until you admit how you feel.”

 

Helena’s breath caught in instinctive fear of being caught in this prison once again. Since Artie had told her about what happened when Sykes had bombed the Warehouse, she knew herself a little better, knew that she did have within her the nobility required to die for the Warehouse, for any of the team, and she had always known that she would die a thousand deaths for Myka. But what she feared most of all, now, was confinement without hope of freedom. Even with Myka here, she feared it so. Her time in the bronze had broken her thoroughly, remade her into a monstrous version of herself. Only Myka had pulled her from the brink. But Helena feared what she could become again.

 

Myka yelled at Claudia. “What the hell do you – and the Warehouse – think you’re doing? How can you do this to me – to us? You know what this will do to HG! Please let us out of here!”

 

Steve’s voice said calmly, ”HG, you have nothing to fear from this. You will be free. This is just to stop you from running away from one another. You trust the Warehouse, don’t you?”

 

The soft scent of apples filled the air. Helena’s voice came weakly, reluctantly, but she breathed in the scent and smiled softly as she said, “Yes, I do.”

 

“And you, Myka?” Steve’s voice came through again.”Claudia and I spoke to Pete. He is hurt, but he understands that you love him, but you’re not in love with him. He will recover, and pretty quickly I would say. He was more interested in...other details...” (there was a sound very much like a muffled snort in the background) “than he was about you not loving him, as it turned out. He was getting some pretty strong vibes there every time he touched you. So you don’t need to worry about that, ok?”

 

Myka’s eyes popped open, her mouth wide in surprise. “Are you...are you sure about that, Steve?”

 

At the same time, though, Helena’s eyes narrowed and she snarled, “What do you mean, every time he **touched** Myka?”

 

Steve cleared his throat again and said, “Uh, HG, Myka and Pete made a bit of a mistake recently and tried to have a...a relationship together. It was clearly doomed from the start but Myka tried to play along, so she didn’t hurt Pete. Pete does love her, and they are perfect for each other in some ways, but we all know that they’re more like brother and sister. The relationship, such as it was, is now over. So Myka, you can let it go. You don’t need to feel guilty anymore, honey. Pete will be fine.”

 

Helena’s eyes blazed, her stomach twisting with jealousy and rage as she had involuntary visions of Pete touching Myka’s perfect skin. She tried to damp it down. She knew that she didn’t have the right to be jealous, that Myka deserved happiness more than anyone she had ever met in her long life. She knew that it was she herself who had turned from the mute appeal in Myka’s eyes in Wisconsin, and had chosen her life with Nate and Adelaide over the possibility of a life with Myka, and she knew that it was probably the hurt from that rejection that had sent her running into Pete’s ridiculously beefy arms in the first place. But her selfish heart, the bloody traitor, still wanted that happiness to be because of her, wanted the hands touching Myka to be her own. It was Helena’s turn to close her eyes, and tears crept out from beneath her lashes. 

 

Myka was pretty damn sure of how Pete would react if he thought she and HG were interested in one another, and she was fairly sure of what Claudia’s snorts and Steve’s mention of “other details” were all about.  Her mouth quirked a little at the thought. But she was filled with shame because she had hurt Pete, her partner and the best friend she had ever had. She heard a quiet noise from Helena and looked up involuntarily to see the tears that were slowly making their way under the beautiful lashes.

 

“Oh no, Helena, please don’t cry...please. It’s ok,” she said desperately, trying to free her hands to comfort the other woman. Helena pulled away as far as she could, trying not to see or touch any part of Myka so that she didn’t have to imagine Pete’s hands touching that which she wanted so desperately. She cared deeply for Peter Lattimer, but the idea of him touching Myka in that way was like a knife in her heart, in her very soul. She felt the last of the traitorous hope that was within her begin to fade and die. Part of her, the part that still hadn’t forgiven herself for her past actions, felt that this was just as it should be. Helena didn’t deserve Myka Bering, didn’t deserve happiness after all she had done in her long life. She loved the woman too much to put her through any more pain. She averted her eyes as she tried to control herself, to deal with the pain that was so much worse, somehow, than anything else she’d ever felt. Even the pain of Christina’s death. She had never thought such a thing to be possible.

 

There was a silence for a moment as Steve and Claudia realised that Helena was crying. Steve cleared his throat reluctantly and said, “Guys, we’re going to leave you now. No-one can hear you or see you once we put this phone down. You have complete privacy. We will check back with you in a few hours. Everything that happens from here on in is the Warehouse’s idea. And remember that Claudia is connected to the Warehouse. It will let her know when it’s time to bring you out of there. I know you’re mad at us right now, but what the Warehouse wants, the Warehouse gets. Try to be honest with each other. We love you.”

 

The silence was suddenly deafening. Myka couldn’t look away from Helena’s face, her perfect face which was contorted in pain and marred by tears that she herself had caused. Myka’s heart twisted.

 

“Helena.” She spoke softly, and as she focused on trying to ease the other woman’s pain, she found her hands suddenly free from their bonds. She lifted her hands hesitantly, awkwardly, using her thumbs to gently wipe away the tracks of the tears on the perfect face in front of her. Helena’s breath caught at the contact, and her eyes opened to meet Myka’s. Myka steeled herself as she met Helena’s eyes.

 

“I am so sorry. I didn’t know how to...how to even begin to tell you about what happened between Pete and I. I just...I was so sad, and you...” she coughed a little and averted her eyes for a moment, then continued, “and it seemed like he really loved me, and I let it happen. I shouldn’t have, I know that. I hurt him. But sometimes it’s just so hard to be alone. To face it all, what we go through every day. And I have said goodbye to y...to too many people. Too many times.” She saw Helena’s jaw tighten, and some of the fire that she so admired and, yes, desired, flared in Helena’s eyes.

 

“I...understand, Myka. Loneliness is difficult. I understand this more than most. And we are friends, are we not?” she said lightly, falsely. Myka could see her eyes change, become distant as she withdrew. ”Why should you apologise to me for trying to be happy?  Did I not do the same thing with Nate, with Giselle? The fact that neither of those relationships worked out is neither here nor there I suppose. But I did try to be happy, and you told me to ‘go for it’, did you not?” Her eyes met Myka’s briefly, darkly. “So why would I say anything different to you about...,” she swallowed,”Pete?” The last word came out as little more than a hiss. Her head tilted back, nostrils slightly flared, jaw set, and her eyes were ablaze. She tried to force a smile onto her face, and bit her lip and looked away when she failed. Myka swallowed, with great difficulty, as it became clear to her, finally, that her feelings, so strong and so deeply buried, were shared, at least in some part, by the woman in front of her. The woman she had admired for so many years, first as an author, then as a devious opponent, then as a flawed but true friend. A woman who had willingly sacrificed herself more than once so that Myka could live, and who had thanked her while doing it. Myka’s heart stuttered in her chest.

 

“HG? Helena? Look at me. Please.”

 

Her gentle but insistent tone tugged at Helena, and she slowly met Myka’s eyes. Helena looked at her, suddenly serene, and she murmured, ”A girl could die happy, Myka Bering, having had only one look into your eyes.“ The sound of a bell tolling in the distance washed over Myka, and suddenly, darkness took them both.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Claudia and Steve settled back on the bed after hanging up the telephone. Claudia let out the breath she had been holding.

 

“Whew, Jinksy. That was intense. Did you hear how mad Myka was? And HG was crying. I don’t even know what to say about that. She’s the scariest mother I know, I can’t believe she even knows how to cry.”

 

Steve took a breath and said,” I trust the Warehouse, Claudia. It’s past time those two worked this out. They’re hurting each other and the people around them, and if things carry on as they are, Myka will leave. She isn’t happy. So we had to do something. I’d rather have Myka mad at me for a while than see her in this much pain all the time.” He stared at his hands, fingers laced together, as he tried to gather his thoughts.

 

Claudia nodded her head slowly. “I know, sweetness. My heart was breaking every time I looked at her. And have you seen HG’s face every time we Skype? Her eyes just don’t have that...that spark. We have to give them the chance to be together. I just hope we don’t have to throw Aphrodite’s girdle in there. Things could get reaaaaallllllly messy, really quick. Ew that’s disturbing, mental images, la la la la la...” Claudia stuck her fingers in her ears. Steve smiled, amused as always at his best friend’s antics and at the Claudia logic of sticking her fingers in her ears to stop mental images.

He smiled, a little evilly, and said, “Speaking of mental images, nothing can be worse than catching Pete and Myka making out again...” He shuddered. Claudia squeaked and dug her fingers deeper in her ears, singing in a way that even tone-deaf Steve could tell was out of tune. He chuckled and put his hands behind his head, relaxing and breathing calmly like he always did when he wanted to think.

 

_“We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams.”_

 

Myka’s eyes opened slowly. She couldn’t remember where she was, or how she got here. She looked around. She was in her old bedroom, and she could hear familiar voices raised downstairs. “Myka?” She looked down to see Helena lying on the floor beside her bed. “Helena,” she said softly.

 

“Where are we?” asked the Englishwoman, blinking as she raised herself onto her elbows.

 

“In my old room in Colorado Springs,” said Myka. “That’s my parents downstairs.”

 

“Are we actually here, or are we perhaps time-travelling, do you think?” HG asked.

“I don’t know,” Myka said, getting up slowly, “but it’s time we found out.” She slid her long legs over the edge of the bed and offered a hand to Helena, who quirked an eyebrow in response. “Shall we?”

 

She helped the other woman up, letting go of her hand slowly, reluctantly, but turning her mind to the business at hand. Why were they here, and **when** were they?

 

They walked downstairs, the voices becoming clearer as they approached the kitchen. Myka’s mother and father, Helena assumed, were holding an irate conversation in a sort of stage whisper that did nothing to hide the content.

 

“Myka is different than Tracy!” said Myka’s mother insistently. “She isn’t strong. She doesn’t have as much going for her, you know that. Going to college might be the only chance she gets to do anything interesting with her life before she ends up stuck in this bookstore with us! Tracy will be the prom queen, you know that, but Myka won’t amount to anything!”

 

“I don’t want to waste my savings sending her to college,” Myka’s dad said in response. His brow was furrowed in what Helena imagined was his customary frown, and his voice was indifferent, a little bored, even. “She can just stay here and run the store. What’s the point in sending her to college – all that expense when we both know that Myka hasn’t got it in her to do anything worth a damn? We might as well save it for Tracy!”

 

Helena heard a quiet sob behind her, and saw the small form of a teenaged Myka Bering sneaking slowly back up the stairs that she and “her” Myka had just descended. She looked to her right and saw the other Myka’s eyes filled with tears, with her hand to her mouth as the memory she had obviously repressed was played out so cruelly in front of her. Helena closed the distance between them with one step, her arms tightening around Myka’s shoulders convulsively.

 

“Myka Ophelia Bering,” she whispered into her ear. “I forbid you to believe these mediocre minds. I am HG bloody Wells and I am telling you that you are unique and that you are wonderful and that the very fact of your presence in this world convinced me not to destroy it. You, and only you. No-one else, not even my Christina, could have got through to me as I held the Minoan trident in my hand and dreamed of a new world built on the ashes of this future that had so disappointed me. But I couldn’t bear to go through with it if that new world didn’t contain you. You are a jewel, a pearl among swine, and they are blind if they cannot, or will not, see it.” As she spoke, a golden light surrounded them, and Myka’s eyes blazed gold and green as she suddenly knew in her heart that Helena spoke the truth.

 

In the room where their bodies lay, a golden rope lay on the floor. Attached to it were dozens of other arcane, bizarre or just downright odd objects, all suddenly emitting a soft golden light that surrounded the women as Helena spoke the truth to Myka. “Good call on the lasso, by the way, Agent Jinks” said Claudia, suddenly sitting up as the Warehouse whispered to her. “Seems like it’s doing its job.” She smiled softly. Round one to Jinksy and the Claudster...

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

_“The ink in which our lives are inscribed is indelible.”_

 

Bells softly pealed, surrounded Helena. She was bathed in light and sounds that were as familiar to her as her own breathing. A child’s laughter and playful shouts, the calm tones of an older woman. She opened her eyes to find herself in the place where her ruin had truly begun. She had always known herself to be reckless, that one of her flaws was her belief in her own cleverness, her belief that she was always right, but it was this day that first brought home to her the consequences. She knew that she should not blame herself for the actions of the men who had taken everything from her, but she still did. If only she had stayed with Christina instead of running off, full of hubris, to find some worthless artefact. Pride had been her downfall here, not only in leaving Christina, but in her actions afterwards. She had truly believed in her madness that hers was the only loss that mattered, and that she had the right to build a time machine to return here and change what had already happened. Instead, her machine had returned her consciousness to the past in the body of her Sophie, Christina’s nanny. She had tried to fight the men who were trying to rob her cousin’s house, but in Sophie’s middle-aged body, she was close to powerless. Instead of changing the past, she had instead endured firsthand this scene, the scene that was about to play out before her once again. She had watched Christina’s final moments as she cowered in fear from the rough men who had invaded her home. Something in Helena Wells knew that she hadn’t ever really left this place, that in her heart she remained here, the world’s only true time traveller ironically stilled in time, her mind as broken as the body of her child. She did not think she could endure this again.

 

Myka opened her eyes to the sound of bells, and looked around at the scene that she and Helena had been dropped into. She didn’t question how. If there was one thing that Myka Bering could do, it was to focus on the moment, take action and ponder all of the extraneous details at her leisure later. It was the quality that had made her such an effective Secret Service, and then Warehouse, Agent. Helena stood next to her, a look of such profound pain and desperation on her face that Myka’s heart stilled within her for a moment, her stomach clenched in sympathy at the horrific pain her companion was facing.

 

“I can’t...I can’t watch this again Myka, I can’t...”

 

Helena’s shoulders shook, her hands covering her mouth.

 

Myka reached out and took her companion’s hand. “You can do anything, Helena Wells. You are the strongest person that I have ever met.” She squeezed Helena’s hand gently in emphasis. Soft golden light suffused the dark corridor and Helena suddenly believed her soft words, despite all evidence to the contrary. Her shoulders straightened, her head lifted and her jaw set as she nodded. Her eyes were hard but glistening with tears.

 

The Warehouse shifted, its joints creaking. If a building could be said to have an expression, its would have been worried.

 

Myka took Helena’s hand as they watched the scene play out. There was a dark skinned, middle-aged lady who was being attacked by two rough looking men. They were trying to subdue her, threatening her with short clubs in their dirty hands. She suddenly lifted her head with a feral growl and, from nowhere, struck out with the savage skills of a killer and the desperation of a cornered animal. Myka knew from reading HG’s file that the woman’s name was Sophie, and that she had looked after Christina when Helena was working at Warehouse 12. The eyes that met Myka’s, however, were the eyes of a soul in deep torment, and Myka understood instantly that the soul she saw in those eyes did not belong there. Further down the corridor, another thug approached a screaming dark-haired girl. The middle-aged woman fought valiantly, breaking limbs, but was beaten into submission, blows raining down on her head and making Myka wince. She heard Helena’s breath catch in a gasp beside her. Myka knew that this was the moment that had destroyed Helena and set her upon the path to madness, had made her into the woman who had held a gun to Myka’s head and almost destroyed the whole world. When the final blow landed on Sophie’s head with a sickening crack, Helena knew she had failed to save her daughter and that knowledge had sent her roaring, careering into the arms of madness. In building her time machine and returning here in Sophie’s body, she had allowed herself to feel that most fatal of emotions. Hope. And it was this that was her undoing. “ _I hope, or I could not live.”_ The last thing the time traveller saw before her consciousness left Sophie’s body was the blow that killed the dark haired child instantly, that quieted her voice forever.

 

The man who killed Christina Wells neither knew nor cared how fiercely her mother loved her. She was simply an obstacle to his goal. He was oblivious to the fact that he was robbing the woman beside Myka of her greatest love, a love which had redeemed her, had wiped out all the sins she had ever committed in the past. The scene faded from view but Helena’s face remained, filling Myka’s vision. The pain and rage in her eyes was terrifying. Myka had always known intellectually that losing Christina had driven Helena mad, but now she understood it in her bones, and she welcomed that understanding. Because she, too, would have gone mad from this pain. She accepted it and Helena somehow saw that acceptance in her eyes. But the pain remained. Myka’s vision faded. Her last sight was of Helena throwing her head back in a feral scream before the gentle tolling of bells stole them away into the dark...

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

_“It was as if all the pain in the world had found a voice.”_

 

Claudia sat up on her bed in the B&B, rubbing her neck gingerly, listening to Steve’s steady breathing. She couldn’t believe he had managed to fall asleep. This was the part she was frightened of. If the Warehouse was worried, then she, as trainee caretaker, had to take notice. Helena Wells was a hell of a woman, the kind of woman that Claudia wanted to be for the most part, but forcing her to face this again was a gamble. The kind of gamble that the whole world could suffer for. Helena was a force to be reckoned with, and if she went all Dark Willow again, Myka might not be able to talk her down this time. Claudia was lost in her own thoughts, but something in her connection to the Warehouse tugged at her and she turned her head, unsurprised to see that Mrs Frederic lurked in her blind spot.

 

“Hey Mrs F,” she said, trying to exude confidence. Mrs Frederic stepped forward and to Claudia’s great surprise, sat down on the bed next to her, smoothing her skirt unconsciously.

 

“How are they?”

 

Claudia shrugged, holding her hands up and saying, “Honestly, I don’t know. We said we’d give them some time so I don’t want to interrupt. This could be the most important conversation they ever have.”

 

“I hope you and Mr Jinks have done the right thing.” There was no judgement in Mrs Frederic’s voice. She just meant exactly what she said. She knew that Claudia was doing what the Warehouse had prompted her to do, and she approved. But she could feel what Claudia felt, and she was worried. And when Irene Frederic was worried, Claudia knew there was something to worry about. The redhead hugged her knees to her chest and silently prayed that her belief in the Warehouse, in Myka and HG, was not misplaced. Mrs Frederic sat next to her on the edge of the bed with Steve quietly resting behind. No-one said anything for some time.

 

_“It is when suffering finds a voice and sets our nerves quivering that this pity comes troubling us.”_

 

Notes hung in the air like crystal. Myka was back on the bed next to HG, holding the weeping woman in her arms. Hoarse sobs racked her slight body. Myka felt her heart break at the sound, and she clutched Helena to her tightly. The fact that they were both naked was quite forgotten. Helena needed her, Helena who had endured _that_ , had endured seeing her child die in front of her, and she would die before she would walk away again. “I’m here, I’m here,” she repeated, like a mantra.

 

Bells rang, bells tolled, and then they were standing next to the dead body of a man Helena had never seen before. He was tall and blond and looked like he had been strong in life. Helena looked around her, feeling lighter somehow, but not really sure what had changed. Her skin hummed, somehow, as if she was being cradled in the arms of a lover. She did not understand the feeling. But as she looked around she saw the running form of the woman she knew so well approaching the man’s body. Her face was frantic. The agent’s younger self crossed the floor to the body, collapsing bonelessly to the floor. Helena turned to see the Myka from her own time next to her, her beautiful face dissolving in grief and guilt. There was just enough time for Helena’s reflexes to kick in and she caught Myka as she fell.

 

Myka barely remembered that day, did not want to see it. She had enough nightmares about blood seeping through sandy hair, but if Helena could face Christina’s death, she could face this. She watched herself break in the past, collapsing beside Sam’s lifeless body. She tried to be strong, like she always did, but she couldn’t stop it from happening again. This time, however, slim but wiry arms caught her as she fell. “I couldn’t save him, I should have been there! It should have been me, Helena!” Her heart fractured as she saw the blood pooling on the marble floor once again. Helena lowered her gently to the floor, where she wrapped herself tightly around the agent, rocking her gently as hoarse sobs tore from her throat.

 

Bells carried them back to the doorless room, where Helena cradled Myka to her and whispered, murmured softly in her ear.

 

“If you had died, Myka, I would not be here. You saved me. You could not have saved Sam, but you did save me. Your eyes carried me from the door of death’s other kingdom, my dear Myka, and back to life. You are the most miraculous creature to have ever lived, because of all things, you actually made me want to live again. Sam’s death was not your fault, but my life is. Do not be so cruel as to leave me to live it without you to light the way.” Myka’s heart eased in its horrified pounding, and as the golden light of truth surrounded her, she relaxed in the other woman’s arms.

 

Claudia sat up straight, feeling the sudden lightness in the air around her. This was not over, but somehow the very worst of it had been exposed, dug up and exposed to the light. She thought it was a bit like a broken bone that had healed wrong. It needed to be broken again and reset before it could heal, and she thought that was what the Warehouse was trying to do by forcing Myka and Helena to face who they had been, both through their own eyes and each other’s. Claudia had spent days in one of the more neglected rooms in the Warehouse, going through inventory to find artefacts that would work together to make this possible. Finding the artefacts to negate the downside of each artefact was a whole lot of fun too, _not_. She had rolled her eyes in frustration so many times in the last week that she was worried she might have inflicted a permanent injury to her eye-rolling muscles. But eventually, with the Warehouse’s guidance, Claudia’s particular brand of steampunk braininess, and Steve’s intuition, they had put together a device that would do everything the Warehouse was whispering in her ear. Firstly bring the two crazy chicks together, since they’d been stepping around each other for so many years it was like they had an invisible force field between them. Secondly, stop them from leaving or hiding. Hence the naked thing with the ropes that wouldn’t let them move apart. It sounded kinky, but Claudia thought it might just be obvious enough to work. And third was to get both of them to face their demons, but in the right way. Jamming Christina’s death into Helena’s face again was a surefire way to start an apocalypse, in Claudia’s not so humble opinion, but tying in an artefact that let her really feel, really _believe,_ that Myka understood and forgave everything that had followed...that was the challenge. In the end Claudia had decided on the combination of artefacts that forced the ladies to tell the truth, but also forced each woman to believe the truths that the other uttered, and to feel what the other was feeling. Add in a little invisible time-travelling mojo and “voila!”

 

Claudia was a little proud of herself. Hell, she was a _lot_ proud of herself. She grinned and turned to Mrs Frederic, starting to say “Did you feel that, Mrs F...?” and then she trailed off because, of course, Mrs Frederic wasn’t there. Steve sat up behind her on the bed and said “Did you just call me Mrs F?” Claudia chuckled and turned to her best friend to explain.

 


	8. Chapter 8

The bells rang and the light dawned on Myka once again. She was standing in Yellowstone Park next to Helena, who wilted slightly upon realising where they were.  Myka used to come here on holiday, camping with Tracy and her parents. She had loved it, the wide open spaces, the feeling of being close to nature, to the air on her skin. She could sit for hours at night watching the stars until her parents shouted at her to go to bed. The words “Myka Ophelia Bering” still made her wince a little. But her feelings about Yellowstone were a little more confused nowadays, largely due to the actions of the woman standing next to her.

 

“Claudia and Steve must really dislike me, to make me watch this,” murmured Helena. She tried for a playful tone, but it was clear that she was a little worried that her words might be true.

 

Myka shook her head. “No, HG. They said that this was the Warehouse’s doing. So I guess there’s something here that you or I, or both, need to see.”

 

The scene before them was a familiar one. Helena, dressed in a power suit with her hair tied up, brandishing the Minoan Trident. The Trident she had deceived and betrayed Myka to obtain, so that she could go through with her plan to destroy the world.  Myka understood her reasons, understood the madness that had overcome her – how could she not, after witnessing Christina’s death? But seeing it all again made her grit her teeth in anger and remembered shame for her failure to see what Helena was up to. She took a moment, though, to admit to herself that she found Helena insanely attractive even when she was like this. Standing there with the Trident, it was clear that she was out of her mind, but she still looked like a vengeful goddess to Myka. The effect it had on her was powerful. She breathed slowly to steady herself and watched as Artie shot HG, with anger and a touch of hatred in his eyes. And then saw the shock in his eyes as the Corsican vest turned his actions against him. What she noticed most of all in that moment, though, was the true regret on Helena’s face as she saw the injury that Artie had unknowingly inflicted upon himself. Myka’s analytical mind was working overtime and she saw the depth of the pain that it had caused Helena to hurt Artie, even though Artie had never kept his dislike and mistrust of her a secret. It underlined what she knew of Helena already, and of her actions on this day and before. She was not an evil maniacal killer, as she had been painted by Artie, the Regents, and even Pete. It was pain driving her, not malice. It still didn’t make her actions okay, but Myka was glad that at least some of her judgement about Helena had been correct.

 

They watched together in silence as Helena continued her mad ranting about the world and how it would be better to start over again, to wipe out the sins of the past and begin anew. In some ways Myka agreed. It was hard to look at the world’s history and see anything worth saving. The human mind is naturally skewed to notice the negative – some sort of a survival instinct, she guessed. Looking at the past hundred years of human history, a person could be forgiven for thinking that humans were a plague on the planet they occupied. Myka bit her lip, lost in thought until the moment that haunted so many of her nightmares played out in front of her. She had called HG’s bluff here at Yellowstone, had told her that if she wanted to kill the whole world in her pain, then she would have to start with Myka. Somewhere deep down she supposed that she knew even then that Helena cared for her, and although she didn’t want to examine the thought too closely as she faced down the grief-maddened writer, her mind had made the connections and used the only leverage she had.

 

She paused in her musing and and gently took HG’s hand as they stood together, watching the scene before them. Myka’s younger self forced a gun into Helena’s hand, screamed at her to kill Myka first, since the end result would be the same. She, Myka Bering, would still be dead as a result of Helena’s actions. And as she always had, and always would, Helena Wells chose to save the Secret Service agent. The moment began to fade for Myka as the bells rang, but she saw quite clearly the look in Helena’s eyes as she handed the Trident to Myka’s younger self. There was regret, grief, madness of course; but mostly her eyes were filled with a shining and clear love that Myka could barely stand to see. Her heart swelled, regret filling her. She wished that things had been different, that Helena had abandoned her mad plan and had been honest with her back then. (“Or you could have been honest with her,” said a traitorous voice in her head.) But now it was too late.

 

Helena felt the tolling of the bells surround her as she saw the scenery of Yellowstone Park appear from blackness. She had awoken to this new world out of the bronze, and had never seen this place before she arrived on the day she planned to destroy the world. Even in her madness she had had to admit to herself that it was probably one of the most beautiful places on earth.  Now, returning here, she was able to see the beauty around her with new eyes untainted by madness. It was truly devastating. She didn’t believe in a Creator, but she could understand sometimes, looking at the beauty of a place like this, or at the infinite possibility of the universe, why so many people did. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She did not want to have to witness the scene that was about to play on this stage before her. She remembered every moment of this day clearly, cruelly so, but she at least had not ever seen herself while in the grip of her madness. She cringed at the thought of what she had done, and quipped softly to Myka that Steve and Claudia must really dislike her, to cover her shame about what they were about to see.  Myka reassured her, told her that there must be something she needed to see here. She watched as Artie was injured. She could argue that it was self-inflicted, she knew, since he had shot her. We reap what we sow, and all that. But she knew that by donning the Corsican vest that day, it was likely that someone would be hurt if they tried to stop her. And she admitted to herself that the person she hurt could easily have been Myka. She fidgeted a little, ashamed of her insanity, ashamed that she had hurt Artie, the gruff and grumpy man for whom, despite his faults, she had come to care deeply.  Then she watched as Myka forced the gun into her hands, heard Myka pleading with her to at least have the courage to look her in the eye as she killed her. “Not like a coward...” Those words had rung in her ears so many times since that day. She had been a coward, had not wanted to face her guilt over leaving her daughter behind to go searching for ‘curiosities,’ the action that had ultimately resulted in Christina’s death.  Instead her reaction was to blame, to destroy, to rend flesh from bone in a useless attempt to alleviate her guilt and grief. She was grateful that the Warehouse hadn’t (yet) chosen to show the bestial things she had done to the men who killed Christina. She was not sure that her friendship with Myka, or indeed anyone else with a modicum of decency within them, would survive seeing that.  Nor was she sure that witnessing it would leave her entirely sane. She could not bring herself to truly regret killing those men, but she did regret the horrific, monstrous things she had done to them beforehand. She realised that tears were once again streaming down her face, and was grateful to discover that Myka had taken her hand at some point in an attempt to comfort her. She felt nothing but relief when the bells summoned her back into the darkness.

 

Myka was summoned back to the doorless room by the bells, and found herself wrapped around the figure of a weeping Helena. She held her tightly, whispering nonsense words against her forehead in an attempt to comfort the shame-stricken author. She was so...so _mad_ at Helena for Yellowstone, for what it did to Myka’s self-confidence and to her belief in people. But in the face of the very real shame and pain that she could see in Helena, and most of all because of the love that she knew Helena felt for her, she could not hold on to her anger any more. She spoke softly, almost inaudibly to the woman next to her.

 

“I thought I hated you for the longest time. I understood your grief, or as much as I could at that point, but I felt so...so _stupid_ for trusting you. I guess I’ve never really felt like I was anyone special, but I was always able to rely on my instincts.” She felt Helena move to try and meet her eyes, but she ducked her head a little, avoiding her gaze.

 

“Please don’t look at me. Let me finish.” She knew she wouldn’t be able to speak if she had to look into Helena’s eyes right now.

 

“I know that I have talents, I can speak different languages and can shoot a gun and handle a suspect and save the President. But somehow I still feel like...like the gangly kid with the big glasses and the goofy smile that the other kids made fun of at school. I read your books when I was a kid, and they gave me a place to escape to, but the other side of that is that I had a place I needed to escape _from._ I wasn’t ever popular, and my dad had this way of making every achievement into...well, nothing. So I never got to feel special, like a lot of people seem to. Maybe I’m too introspective or something, I don’t know. So when you did what you did, when you played me the way you did, I just figured it was my own fault for being so gullible. I hope you don’t think I’m saying any of this to hurt you. I understand now, after watching what happened to Christina, why that would have broken you so completely that you did all this. But at the time it just felt like my fault. I want you to know, though, that I don’t blame you anymore, and that I’m not mad or hurt about it. It was an awful thing that happened to you, and you made a mistake. I forgive you, Helena.”

 

Helena spoke softly, face hidden under her soft, black hair.

 

“May I look at you now?”

 

“Yes,” said Myka, steeling herself. To her surprise, Helena, although her face was still tear-streaked, was smiling.

 

“Do you remember what you said to me when we were in the chess lock in Hong Kong?” Myka smiled broadly in response. “I see that you do! Well, I believe I have already made my apologies and regrets about my actions abundantly, and apparently annoyingly clear, so I shall, if I may quote you, ‘get off my cross’ and move on.” She was rewarded by a silly snort from Myka that she found entirely adorable.

 

“I will say one more thing, though, if you will permit me?” She paused, with a raised eyebrow, searching Myka’s eyes. Myka nodded, biting her lip as she so often did when she was nervous or concentrating.

 

“Thank you. For believing me and for forgiving me, and for giving me the strength to believe in myself a little more. It heartens me to hear you say that you understand my motivations, and I hope it will aid in our understanding of one another from now on. But to know that, even before we were given this most wondrous and annoying opportunity to relive our finest moments,” she indicated the room around them with a wry twist of her mouth, ”you believed in me and my inherent goodness, for want of a better word – well, that is what has given me the strength to become the person I am now. Flawed though I may still be, I am still a better, more whole person and that is entirely because of your faith in me. No-one else, bar Christina who was my own child, has ever had such faith in me, Myka. I have never given anyone cause to. You might not realise it, but if you take the time to think of Artie’s reaction to me, to Pete’s – even Claudia’s, you will see that yours was most unusual. That _you_ are most unusual. And by unusual in this context I mean special, because you have seen in me something good that I now know must have been there all the time. That is a rare gift, Myka Bering. I regret ever making you doubt how special you are, regardless of my motivations...”

 

“Edging closer to the cross there, HG...” Myka said, chuckling.

 

Helena held her hands up, smiling. “Suffice it to say then, that you are most unique, Myka, and you should never doubt that, not for a second.”

 

Myka smiled and blushed. What Helena had said...she couldn’t mistake her sincerity.However, she was a little distracted, because hearing her say “Myka,” in that incredible accent ( _which was not ‘British’, but in fact an English accent, as HG had so often reminded her. Britain was made up of different countries, and had many regional accents. HG’s own originated from the South East of England, and was what would be described as a bit posh in modern-day England_ )... it did things to her insides. She was not an innocent. She had been with men before (but not women) and had sexual encounters, some serious and some not. She wasn’t a virgin. But something about the way Helena said her name made her stomach flip over and her muscles clench and her breath catch. And those things were a hell of a lot harder to hide when you were tied to a damn bed, face to face with the one making you feel that way. She had loved Sam, who was her most serious relationship to date, but he had never been able to make her feel, even in the throes of passion, as she did now at just the sound of Helena’s voice.

 

Helena watched Myka blush at her compliment, and was thoroughly charmed once again by the agent’s reaction. She was feeling a little flushed herself, truth be told, and thinking that she should maybe extricate herself from Myka’s arms a little to avoid embarrassing her any further. But she couldn’t look away from the other woman’s face, her eyes. Chemistry was such a strange thing, she thought to herself idly, as she unconsciously touched Myka’s curly hair. She had indulged herself thoroughly in her century, sexually speaking, and had thought herself long past this kind of self-consciousness. None of the women or men that she had been with, however, had drawn with all their wiles and attractions such a response from her body and heart as this woman was able to with simply a blush. She had never been in love in her time, she knew that. Lust had been enough, along with the fulfilment she got from her work at the Warehouse and her writing and inventing. But this feeling, this incredible chemical reaction- it made her understand why people had created songs and poems and beautiful works of art in its honour. Love was a bloody mystery to her, she was not afraid to admit, but if it came in the form of Myka Bering, it was one that she was happy to continue investigating for the rest of her life. The bells sang and drew both women onward.

 


	9. Chapter 9

Myka was smiling when her eyes opened, once again, to the sound of bells. The smile disappeared in an instant, however, when she saw where she was. “Fucking Boone, Wisconsin,” she spat. She had feared this would be a stop on their journey, but being here and seeing it again was a whole other thing. She didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to revisit this rejection. Especially not now, not when she knew that Helena had gone from here to Giselle, after telling her that she was craving this ‘normal life’ with Nate and Adelaide. She had felt betrayed by what Helena did at Yellowstone, sure, but it didn’t feel personal. This was. Helena had, with her soft words and firm embrace, rejected everything that Myka was mutely offering when she asked her, almost begged her to come back to the Warehouse. And then she went on to another woman...so the rejection that day wasn’t to do with her wish for a normal life. It was clearly to do with Myka. She tried not to cry, tried to keep a stiff upper lip, as HG would say. But of all the things that had happened in her life, the weird things that happened when you worked at the Warehouse, the incredible losses that she had suffered – this was the one that broke her. She turned away so that Helena couldn’t see her break down.

 

Helena knew where she was from the noises of crickets and suburbia that she could hear once the bells faded. She was stunned, however, when she heard Myka swear loudly. She had never heard the agent say anything stronger than the word “pissed”, which she gathered wasn’t even a particularly strong word in this time. She turned to look at her, puzzled, and saw what looked to be a mix of blind rage and pure pain on her face before Myka turned her back on Helena.

 

“Myka, what...?” she began, but was interrupted by the agent hissing at her.

 

“Please,” Myka said, the word pushed out reluctantly through gritted teeth. “I can’t talk to you right now. Let’s just get this over with...”

 

Myka refused to move and pulled her arm away when Helena tried to take it. Helena sighed, not understanding, but turned to face the scene in front of them. They were both there, talking in Nate’s kitchen, and Myka was asking her why she was here, why she was chasing the ghost of Christina by moving in with a man who had a daughter. She remembered how much that accusation had hurt at the time, but she also knew that it hurt because it was true.  She watched herself reply angrily to the agent, words stinging in response. Their vantage point moved to the outside of the house, and they both watched in silence as their former selves were saying goodbye to one another, and Myka so valiantly tried to tell her to be happy, sounding as if the words were being ripped out of her.  She saw herself as she embraced the taller woman, and turned away to her ‘normal’ life. The scene changed again, suddenly. They were at the B&B, and Myka stepped wearily through the door, wearing the same clothes she had been wearing in Boone. She closed the door softly behind her and sat down on the floor beside the bed suddenly, as if her legs had been cut out from beneath her.

 

“Mykes?” Pete’s voice came from outside the door. “Are you okay?”

 

The woman on the floor didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. She wasn’t crying, but she looked as if her world had ended. Pete’s voice came through the door again, insistently.

 

“Mykes, I’m coming in...”

 

He opened the door and saw her sitting there, bereft. He made a noise in his throat and practically threw himself onto the floor beside his partner, wrapping his arms around her tightly as she began to sob.

 

“I really thought she would come, Pete. I really thought...” She didn’t finish, but Helena knew what the end of the sentence was. _“I really thought she loved me.”_

 

Helena didn’t think she could feel any worse than she had while watching herself wield the Trident, but it appeared she had underestimated the Warehouse’s power to reveal the deepest wounds in both of them. She did not realise that by giving in to her fear and choosing this safe life with Nate and Adelaide, she had hurt the agent so deeply.  Bells sang and summoned her and Myka into the dark once again.

 

Myka moved away from Helena as fast as she could, as far away as she could given the ropes surrounding them both. The swift movement made the ropes twitch and tighten a little, but when she stilled, so did they. Helena did not try to stop her this time. She tried to speak, and Myka cut her off, uncharacteristically abrupt.

 

“I don’t want to hear it, Helena. I wish you hadn’t seen that. But it’s the past and I really, really don’t want to revisit it. I wanted you to come back and I was hurt that you didn’t. But it’s ok, I get it, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

 

Helena looked at her and said, softly, “I understand, Myka. You don’t wish to revisit that which has caused you pain. But I’m very much afraid that you don’t have any choice. After all, that is the very reason we are here. Our friends, and apparently the Warehouse, wish us to be honest with one another. And I would very much like us to talk about what happened in Boone, and...and after, with Giselle. I am afraid that if we don’t, we won’t be leaving our cosy little prison any time soon.”

 

Myka tried to be calm, tried to remind herself that she had dealt with her feelings about this day, and what had happened between Helena and herself. But she was so furious, the words burst out.

 

“Do you have any idea...do you know what you did to me when you turned me away? Told me you didn’t want to come back to...to the Warehouse? I accepted it Helena, I let it be because you said you needed a ‘normal’ life, whatever the hell that is! But then I find out that you gave it up, your damn precious normal life, to go somewhere else and you’re dating Giselle now! You hurt me with Yellowstone, Helena, but this...what you did here? You broke me, Helena. I was offering...I was...God damn it!” She practically screamed the last sentence, in pure frustration.

 

“You were offering what, Myka?” asked Helena gently.

 

Myka avoided Helena’s eyes carefully, beginning to flush a little.

 

“I didn’t mean _I_ was offering anything, I just meant, you know, the Warehouse...” she mumbled.

 

Helena slowly lifted her hand to Myka’s face, lifting her chin and gently forcing her to meet Helena’s eyes.

 

“You were offering **what** , Myka? Why did it hurt you so deeply that I stayed with Nate? Why did it...I... _break_ you?” she asked quietly, insistently. Her eyes were darker than Myka had ever seen before.

 

“You know what I mean, Helena. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” Myka tried to pull away again but neither Helena nor the ropes would allow it.

 

“I believe I do know what you mean, Myka. But I think that I, and the Warehouse, need you to say it. For the avoidance of any further misunderstandings.” Myka just looked at her, biting her lip.

 

“Very well then. It seems it falls to me to explain some matters to you, first, and perhaps then you might wish to be more forthcoming. You remember Emily Lake, I am sure?”

 

Myka nodded.

 

“I entirely deserved to be punished for what I tried to do at Yellowstone, for the people who died as a result of my madness.  However, I do not think I can ever fully express how I felt when I had time to reflect on Emily Lake, of her time in my body. I understand what the Regents were trying to do, they were attempting to be kind, I know. But try to imagine, if you can, that someone else has been in control of your body for months, has been doing with it exactly what they wish, without reference to your own wants or desires. I do not know, other than in the sparest of detail, what Emily Lake did while she was...wearing me like a garment. But it could have been...anything. I couldn’t help but think of her using my body to stroke that blasted animal she favoured, or worse, to make love to someone I would have found abhorrent... It probably sounds a little dramatic, but in some ways it felt like a rape. A violation. Once I had done the Regents’ bidding with the Astrolabe, and matters had been resolved with Artie, I needed to get away. I needed to work out who I am in this time. I am no longer HG Wells the inventor and writer. I no longer live in Victorian England. So I took some time to acclimatise, to try to get to know myself after all of the pain and loss I had both experienced and caused. Can you understand that?”

 

Myka looked at her mutely, nodding.

 

“When I met Nate and Adelaide, I felt that I had found the thing I was lacking in my earlier life. Maybe the same thing you believed you had found in Pete?”

 

She arched one eyebrow quizzically at Myka, who huffed a little and chewed on the end of one of her stupidly adorable curls.

 

Helena continued, “Something to anchor me, a family and a traditional home with a child. A child who, as you rightly pointed out, acted as a surrogate for my lost daughter. Nate was a lovely man...”

 

She was interrupted by Myka making a rude sound in her throat, and muttering something that sounded like “...beige Neanderthal...”

 

“May I continue?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at Myka.

 

Myka looked up at her with pursed lips, eyebrows drawn together in a fierce frown. “Yes.”

 

Helena began again. “Nate was...is a good man, but he was a little, as I believe someone recently said, beige.” Her mouth quirked a little. “He was a good father, and at the time I suppose I needed to feel part of a family unit. But it became very clear, and in fact not long after that day when you left, that we were not a good fit, I suppose you would say. I said goodbye to them as painlessly as I could and I moved away, to New York. I’ve wanted to visit ever since Claudia made me watch that incessant situational comedy with the annoying group of friends in it. I found another job, and I met Giselle. Did you ever see a picture of her?”

 

Myka shook her head.

 

“She was about your height, very slim, with brown hair that curled, just like yours, and green eyes. Not quite as clear and bright as yours, darling, but green nonetheless. I can lie to myself as easily as you can, Myka, but it appears that our subconscious wishes still make themselves known.” She looked Myka in the eye directly, intently. Myka still said nothing, but her eyes shone with unshed tears and she had her bottom lip between her teeth once again. Helena could have cursed as the light faded and the sound of bells drew them onward.

 


	10. Chapter 10

The bells rang softly, and Myka and Helena stood in the Warehouse, watching as the distant figures of Artie, Pete and Myka’s slightly younger self argued about how to defuse the bomb in front of them. Next to the two women was the shapely figure of the Helena Wells from this timeline, urgently pulling at cables in what looked like some sort of electrical box on the wall. Helena pulled out two thick cables and held them together, initiating some type of force field around the other three agents. Myka shuddered as she realised what she was watching. This was the timeline in which the Warehouse had been destroyed, and Helena along with it. She couldn’t take her eyes off Helena’s face, the gentle smile on her lips as she took action to save her colleagues and friends at the expense of her own life. She watched as Helena gazed calmly into the other Myka’s eyes, smiling, watched her mouth form the words “Thank you,”...watched as Helena Wells died, dissolving into motes of nothingness as the explosion took hold. She could smell the world burning around her, but could see nothing but the afterimage of brown eyes, brown eyes in the serene smiling face of the woman who had willingly sacrificed her own life for Myka’s. Myka screamed. Softly pealing bells carried her away into the smoke.

 

Helena was holding her, arms gently surrounding Myka. She was stroking Myka’s curly hair, smoothing it down behind her ears, and she whispered softly to the agent in her arms, looking into the distance as she did so.

 

“Since I was awoken from the bronze, I have spent a lot of time thinking of course, but even more of my time – the time when I have been corporeal, that is – has been spent in reading, and catching up with what I have missed in the last hundred years.” Her smooth voice paused in its litany as she took a moment to choose her next words.

 

“Some of what I have discovered in my reading made me even more determined to go through with my madness. The World Wars, the Holocaust, the many and varied ways that men have found to perpetuate evils against one another all over this planet...they broke my heart, destroyed for a long time any hope that this world might be the kind of utopia about which I have always dreamed.” Her rich voice drew Myka in, soothed her as the agent tried to dispel the images of death that plagued her.

 

“There is, however, one thing that has given me hope – other than you, of course – for the future of the human race. And that is literature, poetry, the power of words wielded with passion. I have read many books during my long life, and sometimes the power of a well-chosen phrase quite stops my heart. Have you read this poem, the one that begins,” and she quoted softly ‘ _I carry your heart in my heart?_ ’

 

Myka nodded, head against Helena’s shoulder.

 

“I think of those words each time I see you. I have never been so presumptuous as to assume that you might share my feelings, of course, but you should know that if you did, I would carry your heart gladly, eagerly. But whether you...love or hate me, you shall always carry my heart, Myka Bering.” She very carefully did not meet Myka’s eyes as she continued.

 

“The scene that we have just witnessed may have been a terrible one, but in seeing it I must confess that I feel more joy than I have probably ever felt before in my life. That I, Helena Wells, would have been so strong as to give up my life for you...that gives me a sense of belief in myself that I have never felt since I lost my daughter. No matter what happens from here, the Warehouse...Steve...Claudia...they have given me a precious gift. I am myself again.” She smiled serenely. “I am so sorry that it has caused you so much pain to see this, Myka. I would not have wanted you to have to watch me die. But I am glad that, in one timeline, I did make that sacrifice, and I can tell you that I would do it in any lifetime, in any timeline, without hesitation. You are absolutely worth the sacrifice.” She turned her eyes to Myka, to the red nose and red-rimmed eyes that she found so adorable, and the Warehouse worked its magic once again because Myka didn’t feel the pain so badly any more, she just felt a sense of peace. Helena loved her.

 

_“We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.”_

 

Helena felt Myka relax in her arms, her tears exhausted. The agent looked up hesitantly, and pulled herself closer still to HG, to bury her head in her soft hair that was like a waterfall of ink. They rested like that for a long time, saying nothing. Helena reluctantly shifted after what felt like a wonderful lifetime with Myka resting in her arms.

 

“I’m sorry to disturb you, my darling. But I believe there was something we have yet to clarify.”

 

Myka grumbled a little, head still buried in Helena’s hair. She looked up and met Helena’s eyes.

 

“We were speaking of Nate, and Giselle, and how we parted in Wisconsin.”

 

“I know,” said Myka irritably. “Do we have to...go into this again?”

 

Helena sighed softly. “Yes Myka, we do. I think that otherwise we would have already been released from our bonds, from this bed – from each other. But apparently everything we have shared thus far is not enough for whatever purpose the Warehouse has in mind. It is best, I feel, if we get everything that is...between us...out into the open. And then we can move forward. In whatever...capacity you wish.”

 

Myka looked at her a little strangely, repeating the word ‘capacity’ under her breath softly, quizzically.

 

“I have said all I can, Myka.”

 

“I don’t know what you mean, Helena.” The agent was still avoiding Helena’s gaze, and her body was drawn in upon itself.

 

“Are you still trying to avoid this, Myka? I believe I have been as clear as I can. You carry my heart.”

 

Myka flushed again, adorably, in Helena’s opinion. It was hard not to follow the flush to places she had sworn to herself she would not look without Myka’s permission. She satisfied herself with looking at Myka’s face, her heart in her eyes, with a soft smile on her face.

 

“Don’t you have anything to say, Myka Ophelia Bering? Do people profess their love to you so often that you are bored with it?”

 

She softened what could have been sharp words with a raised eyebrow.

 

Myka flushed even more brightly at the word ‘love’.  She was unable to speak, mesmerised by the look in Helena’s eyes. When she spoke, however, her tone was sharp, more cutting than Helena had ever heard her use before.

 

“Do you really mean that, Helena? Or should I be waiting for you to run off, to find another Giselle or Nate or whoever?”

 

Helena looked at her again, flushing a little.

 

“What else can I say, Myka? I made a mistake, I ran from you.” She quoted softly, ‘ _Very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough---as most wrong theories are!’_

 

“I feared hurting you again, and I feared being hurt. I did not – I do not know that I could survive the loss of you. I have lost so much already, but I believe I would be utterly destroyed if I were to lose you. So I chose the coward’s way. Can you really not understand that? After all, you have still not really explained to me what you were...’offering’ when you came to Boone, have you? And why you ran to Pete.”

 

She raised an eyebrow, and something in her tone forced Myka to look up again, to meet her eyes.

 

“I’m sorry Helena, I didn’t mean that. Of course I can understand how you were feeling after Emily Lake, and everything else that happened. And you are not a coward. Not any more than I am, anyhow. But I’m afraid it’s too late. I can’t stay on this merry-go-round anymore. I need to move on. Not with Pete, obviously, because that was just wrong, but I can’t hold you back any more. You deserve a good life, a happy one. And the Warehouse...it’s been a source of too much pain for you. And...you have been a source of pain for me. Boone, then Giselle...I can’t deal with that again. I trust you with my life, but I don’t trust you with my heart. ”

 

Helena looked at Myka, heart in her eyes, for one more moment. Myka would not meet her gaze. She had used all of her skill with words to try to convince this woman of her feelings, and she had failed. Regret filled her.

 

Claudia and Steve were listening to the last part of Myka’s speech. They put the handset down, and Claudia breathed in slowly. 

 

“Time to bring in the big guns, Jinkmeister...” She flicked a switch on the, if she did say so herself, awesomely punky bronze bracelet she wore on her wrist. On the floor of the room with no door, near the lasso and the dreamcatcher, a pair of bookends began to hum softly.

 

Myka closed her eyes. She knew that she hadn’t exactly lied to Helena. She _was_ afraid that it was too late for them. But that didn’t mean she wanted it to be. She was so scared, though, of opening herself up in that way again, like she had in Wisconsin, only to be rejected again. She brushed her soft, straight hair back with long fingers as she sighed.

 

Wait. Wasn’t her hair curly a minute ago? She looked down at her body and realised that those boobs were bigger than hers, that her skin was paler and slightly freckled, and that the hands were more slight, the fingers longer and more tapered than her own muscular, calloused digits. She closed her eyes as she realised what was happening.

 

“You have GOT to be kidding me!” she said, the voice coming out in some sort of pseudo-English accent, the voice deeper and more seductive than hers had ever sounded. She opened her eyes and saw herself staring back, mouth open. Or rather, saw Helena stare back, from Myka’s body. This was going to get confusing.

 

As it had before, the voice coming from nowhere made them both jump.

 

“Hey ladies!” came Claudia’s annoyingly cheery voice. “We’re sorry to interrupt, but the Warehouse decided it was time for some more drastic measures. You guys have swapped bodies, but it’s not like it was with you and Pete, Myka. Because of the combination of artefacts we used, you can both feel what the other is feeling, and see through the other’s eyes. And everything you experience here is real, it’s the truth. If you can stay in that bed together like this, and you, Myka, still say it’s too late, then you’ll be out of there, I promise. But I can’t see it myself. Good luck. Donovan out.”

 

The silence between them was thunderous. Myka didn’t know how to begin. She wouldn’t meet the other woman’s eyes, but she could feel a mixture of amusement and something profound that she could not name rise up in her own chest. Helena’s amusement. She looked up, meeting her own green eyes, dazed with the strangeness of it all.

 

“It appears the Warehouse has not quite finished with us, Agent Bering,” said HG. She laughed Myka’s laugh, and smiled Myka’s smile, goofy but somehow sultry. But when their eyes met, Myka felt the blaze – no, the _inferno_ of her love, the pressure in her chest as Helena looked at her. It was so strong, so sure, and so overwhelming that she didn’t know how Helena stood it. There was also some, very tangible, evidence of Helena’s more...physical response to her nearness that she could not mistake.

 

“Is this...is this really how you feel?” she managed to get out, forgetting how to breathe.

 

“Every _bloody_ time I look at you.” She almost growled, trying to soften the words with Myka’s own lopsided smile, but the agent could feel the tightening in her chest, in her belly, as Helena’s feelings for her washed through her.

 

There was silence for another moment, broken only by their soft breaths.

 

“And you? Is this truly how you feel when you look at me?” The words sounded odd coming from Myka’s mouth, in her own accent. Helena marvelled at how Myka’s heart beat, slamming against her chest wall, and how the ever-present blush felt on her skin, the blush that touched her face and neck so often when she looked at Helena.

 

Myka-as-Helena tried to hide her face in her raven-dark hair, but said softly, reluctantly, “Yes.” Helena’s heart soared. Myka was a mystery to her, could hide herself so well in her conscientiousness, her books, her smart mouth and her gun. But thanks to Claudia’s meddling, the river of molten gold that ran through her veins when she thought about Helena Wells was no longer a secret from the author.

 

She tried not to, but Myka could not stop herself from moving closer to the other woman. It was as if she were a magnet drawn to a lodestone. She had no choice, could not keep herself from touching Helena’s hands. Well, her own hands, she supposed, but she tried hard not to think about the artefact aspect of it all. She couldn’t lie to herself or to Helena anymore. She was in love with HG Wells, and had admitted that to herself at least, but she had never let herself really believe that HG loved her, especially not after Boone. But now that she had been exposed to the insidious virus that was Helena’s love for her, she was infected, powerless to resist the draw of the other woman’s nearness. She opened her eyes and looked at Helena, surrendered totally, finally, to the other woman’s love and desire.  

 

_There's truths you have to grow into._

 

There was an audible snap and a flare of light that quite blinded them both for a few moments. But when Myka opened her eyes, she was back in her own body once again. Unfortunately that also meant that she was once again looking at the very naked figure of Helena Wells. She was filled, somehow, with a strange kind of peace when she looked at the woman who, she now knew, loved her without restraint, and with the kind of passion that Myka never believed herself capable of rousing in another human being. She was suddenly extremely, uncomfortably aroused, and didn’t know whether to squeeze her eyes shut or lunge at the woman.

 

Helena’s body, so recently occupied by Myka, was her own again. If she had to share her body with anyone, she would rather it be Myka than anyone else in the world, but she’d rather not have to surrender it again to anyone. Not a problem that would likely arise in a normal lifetime, but when the Warehouse was involved, anything was possible. She breathed a sigh of relief, and opened her eyes to meet Myka’s again. Strapped as they were to this bed, it was awkward to move, but she nonetheless shifted her shoulders so that she could hold Myka’s hands in her own. Myka was looking at her with something like wonder in her eyes.

 

“What is it, my dear?” she murmured softly, stroking the agent’s palms with her thumbs.

 

“I always hoped, Helena. I knew how I felt, but I didn’t dare let myself think that you could feel the same. But now that I’ve felt it, I don’t know what to say.” Her eyes glistened a little as she took in Helena’s face, the full lips, slightly curled up, the perfect brow, so often drawn up in mock surprise, the dark brown eyes that seemed to draw her in to this woman’s soul.

 

“You don’t need to say anything, my dear agent,” said Helena, softly. “After all, there are no secrets between us anymore. Perhaps we can communicate in some other way, now?” She smiled, a little wickedly, but with eyes ablaze with an intensity that made Myka’s breath catch. Helena moved one hand to Myka’s face, her eyes asking permission. Myka nodded, once, and Helena held her gaze for a long, electric moment before moving closer, pulling Myka to her.

 

Helena’s hand was on her cheek, caressing softly. Her other arm burrowed underneath Myka and pulled her so close that Myka could barely breathe. When their lips met, however, that didn’t matter, because Myka forgot how to.  Helena’s lips were full and soft, and her skin against Myka’s felt like silk. The scent of her, that was so indefinably her, filled Myka’s nostrils. Myka opened her mouth to Helena’s soft, insistent pushes, and felt the Englishwoman’s tongue inside her own mouth for the first time. This tongue, that held so much power over her already, was sweet and warm and was taking charge in a way that she had imagined but never before experienced. She gave herself over to the feeling, grasping the hair at the back of Helena’s head  and pulling softly. She was rewarded by a moan from the other woman, and long fingers pulling, teasing at her own curling locks.

 

Helena kissed Myka, glorying in the taste of the agent’s lips, and in the way that Myka’s hands grasped at her hair as they finally gave voice to the music that had filled their hearts since they had first laid eyes upon one another so long ago in London. She lost herself in the physical sensation, the release of the tension that had so long existed between them. But unlike her encounters in the past, this one had an overwhelming dimension to it. She was finally at peace with herself, yes, but this feeling was pure and honest and true – everything that Myka herself was. Helena knew that the Warehouse approved of her, had been given the rare gift of its regard, but this gift – to know, to feel what Myka felt for her – it was a gift beyond price. Tears of pure joy escaped her and streamed down her cheeks.

 

Myka pulled back when she felt the moisture against her face.

 

“Helena...what’s wrong?” She drew back reluctantly to look at the woman, concerned.

 

Helena smiled at her, tears still running down her face as she spoke.

 

“For the first time in my life, Myka Bering, there is nothing wrong. I just have never been so happy before. This is what you do to me.”

  
Myka’s expression of concern was replaced with a look of almost...reverence, as she looked at Helena.

 

“You do know that I have never been with a woman before, don’t you?” she asked, a little nervously.

 

Helena smiled at her, teasing slightly. “Well, my dear, I have never been with someone I loved before. So we can learn together.”

 

Myka smiled broadly, and shook her head a little at Helena’s reply, her simple yet elegant words that, as always, saw to the heart of the matter and never failed to make her breath halt in her chest.

 

“I love you, Helena Wells.”

 

“And I, you, Myka Bering. Now, bloody kiss me!”

 

And Myka did. Neither of them heard the soft sniffling noises that were barely audible inside the room where they made love for the first time. Claudia and Steve replaced the handset softly ( _“before things get weird,” Claudia thought_ ), hugging each other tightly and crying with joy as their friends finally made their legendary romance official.

 


	11. Chapter 11

Epilogue

 

Claudia and Steve’s little kidnapping, artefact-abusing stunt had not escaped Artie’s notice. But when the two friends disappeared from the B&B that afternoon, giggling, and returned with a radiant Myka Bering and HG Wells in tow, he decided to forgo the usual gruff tongue-lashing he would normally have doled out when catching Claudia at her antics.

 

“HG,” he said, raising a caterpillar-like eyebrow at the time-traveller by way of greeting. “You’re back. Good. We have plenty of work for you to do.” Helena smiled at him softly. He nodded at Myka, seemingly about to go on his way into the kitchen.

 

Myka looked from one to the other, surprised, but chose to say nothing about Artie’s casual acceptance of Helena’s presence.

 

She was taken by surprise, however, when Artie suddenly flung himself at the two, catching them in a bear hug.

 

“I’m glad you finally saw sense.” With that, he walked off into the kitchen, muttering to himself. Helena and Myka shared equally stunned looks.  By silent agreement, they joined hands and walked slowly into the living room together. They sat on the couch, heads together, Myka’s arm around Helena’s shoulders, with the fingers of both hands entwined. They were in the same position when Claudia and Steve dragged a quiet, and a little reluctant Pete Lattimer downstairs. He paused for a moment on the threshold, leaning his head against the doorframe as he took in the sight of the two women. When he first met HG Wells, he had vibes all the time around her - disturbing, insidious, but never clear until the shitstorm that was Warehouse 2. He always got vibes around her. Last time he saw her she was warmer, better, but still, in the background there was this niggle, as if there was still a hint of a chance that the evil might return. But now, today? He was almost knocked off his feet by the strength of the vibe he got from her. Peace, pure peace. The kind of feeling he’d only ever had before around Leena. He wanted to be angry, in a way, looking at the women together, because Myka and he should have been perfect together. But how could he be, in the face of the peace and love that was practically radiating from the two women? Pete Lattimer didn’t have that kind of malice in him. Love was love, and the happy vibes he was getting were strong enough to bring tears to his eyes.

 

“Hey hey hey!” he shouted, interrupting their contented reverie. The ladies turned round, both frowning a little, for different reasons, as they saw him. He practically dive bombed onto the couch, however, and cut off any heart to hearts, apologies (from Myka) or possible assassination attempts (from HG). He hugged them both tightly and surprised himself by shedding a few tears as he spoke softly and sincerely.

 

“I love you guys. I’m so happy you found each other.” Then he was gone as suddenly as he’d arrived. Steve and Claudia looked at each other, laughing, and Claudia said, nearly crying herself, “What Pete said. You ladies are so awesome. I’m so frickin happy!”

 

Myka and Helena rose together, almost as one, and wrapped Steve and Claudia in a group hug that had all four of them crying. Mrs Frederic watched from the kitchen doorway, smiling enigmatically, and disappeared.

 

Helena smiled, chuckling at her friends and her lover.

 

“Wells and Bering, solving puzzles, saving the day!”

 

The Warehouse smiled its wooden smile.

 

“Bering and Wells...” Myka muttered, smirking.

 

 

_Tell the truth and read story books; it will take you to the magical moment in a glory night._

Steven Jinks lay on the dry grass outside the B&B, looking up into the dark South Dakota sky that was painted with a billion stars. He was filled with satisfaction, hope for their future, and love for the team that had transformed his life and brought him back from the dead. Myka and Helena were more than perfect for each other. They had this quality of legend about them, as if they’d been ripped from tales of Ancient Greece. A woman, mad with grief who tries to destroy the world, and the one true love who brought her back to herself, back from death, back from madness. He hoped that someday a poet would write an epic about them. But it wouldn’t be today. The adventures of Bering and Wells had only just begun. He smiled to himself, losing himself in the stillness of stars, of endless wonder.

 

_“There is, though I do not know how there is or why there is, a sense of infinite peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven.”_

 

 


End file.
